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Oct 13

8

The Syrian situation has drifted away from the news somewhat. Back to IMF forecasts, house price bubbles, Baby P and Higgs boson. The Royal Mail privatisation awaits us just around the corner with tales of City speculation filling the pockets of those dastardly bankers.

It’s widely accepted that someone – we still don’t know who and apparently have not remembered to want to know – dropped chemical weapons on population centres and killed a lot of civilians. The government of Syria has told the UN what weapon stores they have and the United Nations are organising themselves to destroy them. Off the news, job done. It’s as if everyone in Syria suddenly found peace, had a cup of tea and had a laugh and a joke about it.

Let’s hope the Syrian government, responsible for building this horrific stockpile, have decided to be honest and reveal everything. Either way, whomever dropped the offending bombs has certainly succeeded in removing a lot of dangerous ordnance. It does make you wonder who might have had the biggest motive when launching those attacks? I do use the plural – as there was more than one.

It seems that the government – and rebels – dropping conventional weapons is no longer newsworthy. Tell that to the people cowering in the shadows of rubble and unsafe buildings, living without basic services and in fear of their lives every minute of every day. If an old WWI hand grenade lands on your head, there’s not much to talk about from your perspective in regards to outcome between that, an atomic bomb and some falling masonry. I suspect some of those poor people would gladly suck down a lung-full of Sarin gas rather than live out their current existence. It wasn’t long ago that they were going to school and work, just like you and I.

As things move on, The News gets bored – it can’t repeat nothing for 24 hours a day. Things become normal, accepted. There was a set of co-ordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad just recently – at least 22 people dead, probably many injured. It’s in the newspaper but you’ll have to look at 16 across in the crossword section: 6 letters – who cares?